Lesson 16: Find Your Joy!

Summary Anna loses her key. When she goes looking for it, she finds a life coach instead. And that's where the confusion begins...    Conversation   Anna: Hi, Kaveh! Let’s go to lunch! Kaveh: Ooh, I know a great place. When I first started working here, I would go every day! Anna: Great. Oh, no. Kaveh: What’s wrong? Anna: I lost my key! I just had it this morning.  Kaveh: You should check the Lost & Found office. Anna: Great idea. Where is it? Kaveh: Oh, it used to be across from the cafeteria. But now it’s down in the basement next to the elevators. It’s really hard to find. Anna: The Lost & Found is hard to find. That’s funny. Kaveh: It is. Professor Bot: I hope Anna can find the Lost & Found office! Used to and would describe something that happened repeatedly in the past. Kaveh uses would when he says, “When I first started working here, I would go every day! There are two differences between used to and would. Number 1: We use would only when we say the time period first. Number 2: For verbs like be, think, feel, see and understand, we can only use used to. Kaveh says, "It used to be across from the cafeteria." Keep listening for more! (A worker moves the sign for the Lost & Found office. So, Anna walks into the wrong office without knowing it.) Serenity: Come in! I am Serenity. Anna: Hi, Serenity. I’m Anna! Serenity: Please, sit down. How can I help you? Anna: I lost something very important. Serenity: Shh. I already know. You need help. Anna: Yes. I need help finding the key … Serenity: Shh. You need to find the key – the key that will give you happiness. Anna: Yes. Finding this key will make me very happy. Serenity: First, Anna, let me tell you a little bit about myself. Anna: Okay. Serenity: I used to be a very important person with a very important job. I made a lot of money -- I mean a lot. Anna: Wow. Good for you! Serenity: No! No, it was bad for me. I lost the most important thing – the key! You’ve lost it too, haven’t you, Anna? Haven’t you?   Anna: I guess. So, how does this work? Do I have to fill out a form or something? Serenity: No. No forms. Just answer this one question: As a child, what did you used to do to feel happy? Anna: When I was little, I used to sing all the time with my family. Those were good times. Serenity: Singing is so joyful! I used to sing. But now that I’ve started my business, I’ve just been too busy. Too busy! Anna, why don’t you sing again? Anna: I sing everywhere! I sing in the office. I sing on the metro. I sing in the elevators. I sing on the escalators. I sing in the bathroom. Serenity! Serenity! I really need to find my key. Yeah! Serenity: Yes, we need to find the key … the key to happiness. Anna: No, no. I just need to find the key to my apartment. Serenity: I used to know. But now I don't! Do you, Anna? Anna: I don’t know. I think I left it in the ladies’ room. You know, this isn’t the Lost & Found, is it? (Anna starts walking out of the room) Serenity: It could be the Lost & Found. I’m lost! And I used to find joy for people! I used to find joy! Anna: You know, this is a bad time for you. I’ll find the Lost & Found myself. Bye, thanks. Serenity: I used to find joy. I used to find joy! I used to find joy! Anna: Ah, I found my key! Serenity: I used to find joy! Pofessor Bot: Oh no. Serenity lost her joy. But at least Anna found her key! Check out our website for more!   New Words Are you kidding? - expression. used when someone says something surprising or that seems as if it could not be serious or true  basement - n.  the part of a building that is entirely or partly below the ground ​ elevator - n. a machine used for carrying people and things to different levels in a building escalator - n. a machine used for carrying people and things to different levels in a building​ cafeteria - n. a place where people get food at a counter and carry it to a table for eating form - n. a document with blank spaces for filling in information joy - n. a feeling of great happiness joyful - n. full of joy key - n. something that provides a solution​ or explanation life coach - n. a person who counsels and encourages people on matters about their careers or personal challenges Lost & Found - n. a place where lost items are kept to await reclaiming by their owners (sometimes also written as lost-and-found or lost and found) serenity - n. a feeling of calm and peacefulness ("Serenity" is also the name of the life coach.) state - n. a way of living or existing   Practice Now, practice the grammar you just learned. Use the Comments section below to tell us what you used to do to feel happy.  Remember to follow these rules: Rule # 1: Use would only when you introduce the time period first. You can mention the time in the same sentence: "When I first started working here, I would go every day!" Or, you can mention the time in the previous sentence: "When I first started working here, I did not bring lunch from home. I would go to restaurants every day. Rule # 2: For stative verbs, only use used to. A stative verb is a verb used mainly to describe a state or situation rather than an action. Two examples from today's lesson: Serenity: "I used to know. But now I don't" Kaveh: "It used to be across from the cafeteria. There are many stative verbs in English. Some examples include: be, know, think, feel, see, understand, want, like, love, hate, wish, mean, remember, taste, believe, hear, look and seem.   Listening Quiz See how well you understand this lesson by taking a listening quiz. Play each short video, then choose the best answer. ​Free Materials Download the VOA Learning English Word Book for a dictionary of the words we use on this website. For Teachers Send us an email if you have comments on this course or questions. Grammar focus: Past habitual with "used to" and "would" Topics: Discussing recreation preferences   Comments Let us know what you think about this lesson. Send us an email or write to us in the Comments section below or on our Facebook page.

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Most Large US Public Colleges Fail to Keep Records on Suicides

Most large public universities in the United States do not keep records of how many students have taken their own lives. Yet many American colleges and universities are making investments in suicide prevention. And the demand for mental health services is rising. These are just a few of the findings of a report by the Associated Press, or AP, news agency. The report was released in early January. The Associated Press asked the 100 largest U.S. public universities for yearly numbers on student suicides. It found that only 46 currently keep such statistics. Only 27 public universities have done so regularly since 2007. Of the remaining schools, 43 said they do not keep records of student suicides. Nine others could provide only limited information. The nine did not answer questions about how regularly they recorded the number of suicides. Two other schools did not provide statistics. Recording the number of student suicides comes with its own set of problems. But suicide prevention activists say that without this kind of data, school officials have no way to measure their success. They also say schools need to identify student behaviors that could offer greater understanding and help them save lives. Gordon Smith is a former U.S. senator from Oregon. He became a suicide prevention activist after his son, Garrett, took his own life in 2003 while attending college. “If you don’t collect the data, you’re doing half the job,” Smith told the Associated Press. “We need information in mental health if we’re actually going to be able to better tailor health and healing.” The universities that do not keep records of student suicides include some of America’s largest. They include Arizona State University in Phoenix and the University of Wisconsin in Madison, or UW-Madison. News reports say the two schools have dealt with student suicides in the recent past, including two at Arizona State in 2017. University of Wisconsin health officials said they are finishing work on a recordkeeping system to follow the causes of student deaths. Agustina Marconi, a specialist on disease, works at the University of Wisconsin. In a written statement, she said, “We will create a … model to accurately document all student deaths at UW-Madison… Our findings … will benefit other universities moving forward.” The issue of suicide has gained greater attention nationwide as some schools report today’s students are arriving less prepared for college life. The American Psychological Association and other groups have called this a mental health crisis. And many schools have increased spending on mental health services to fight it. Studies have found increasing rates of anxiety and depression among college students. But some experts say the problem only appears to be worsening. They say this is because students who might have said or done nothing in the past are making use of the increasing availability of help. Ben Locke operates a mental-health group called the Center for Collegiate Mental Health. He also leads the counseling center at Pennsylvania State University. “It’s unfortunate that people are characterizing this … as a crisis,” Locke said. “It’s … criticizing the exact people we’ve encouraged to come forward.” Research shows that young adults in college have lower suicide rates than those who are not college students. But most college students are also at an age when mental health issues like schizophrenia often start to develop. U.S. government health officials have sought to support data collection efforts as part of a special program named after Gordon Smith’s son. The program has given $76 million to more than 230 colleges and universities since 2005. Schools have also separately spent millions of dollars on their own. They often add programs that teach life skills and train school employees to identify students in need. The U.S. Department of Education has urged colleges and universities to collect data on student deaths. But it does not ask the schools to identify suicide deaths. And there are things that make them less likely to keep such records. First, it is often difficult to confirm the cause of death. In addition, medical examiners do not always tell universities when a cause is identified. There are concerns about who is legally responsible for a death. Also, some families choose to keep the details of their child’s death private. And not every school that collects this data counts suicides that happen off their grounds or during breaks. In addition, if the statistics become public, some schools fear it could damage their public image. Nance Roy is with the Jed Foundation, a nonprofit group that works with U.S. colleges and high schools on suicide prevention. Roy said “No school wants to be known as a school with multiple suicides. It’s not good for business.” Activists in at least three states -- New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington -- have pushed to require universities to collect suicide data. But they have yet to have any success. National studies have found that suicide rates are rising in the United States. For every 100,000 Americans, 13 take their own lives. Among those ages 15 to 24, the number is 12.5 for every 100,000. Much of this data comes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which does not keep records of college suicides. I’m ­Dorothy Gundy. And I'm Pete Musto.   Collin Binkley reported this story for the Associated Press. Pete Musto adapted the report for VOA Learning English. George Grow was the editor. We want to hear from you. What else do you think schools can and should do to prevent student suicides? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   statistic(s) – n. a number that represents a piece of information, such as information about how often something is done or how common something is regularly – adv. very often data – n. facts or information used usually to calculate, analyze, or plan something tailor – v. to make or change something so that it meets a special need or purpose accurately – adv. done in a wat that is free from mistakes or errors benefit – v. to be useful or helpful to someone or something anxiety – n. fear or nervousness about what might happen counseling – n. advice and support that is given to people to help them deal with problems and make important decisions characterizing – v. describing the character or special qualities of (someone or something encourage(d) – v. to make someone more likely to do something schizophrenia – n. a very serious mental illness in which someone cannot think or behave normally and often experiences delusions

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Quiet Cooperation Eases Safety Risks in South China Sea

  Recently, an Iranian oil tanker exploded and sank after hitting a Chinese ship in the East China Sea. Investigators are still looking for a cause of the accident. But there is little hope of finding any of the tanker’s 32 crew members alive. What are the chances of a similar accident in the South China Sea? Experts say widespread surveillance, experienced crews, and the possibility of a code of conduct make the South China Sea relatively safe for shipping. Private ships such as oil tankers have already used detailed maps while sailing close to coastlines. Those ships can sometimes enter a disputed area of the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea. When that happens, experts say, modern equipment is able to recognize any accidents. Shared experience Six governments have competing claims in the South China Sea, which acts as a pathway for one third of the world’s shipping traffic. Goods shipped in 2016 were worth $3.37 trillion. That estimate comes from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an American-based research group. Operators of ships have the experience to avoid disputed waters where possible, said Collin Koh, a maritime security specialist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. But during powerful storms, high waves or the sudden passage of military ships, shippers can still face disaster risks, experts say. The number of claimants, and their concerns about other claimants, have increased surveillance operations in the South China Sea. Huang Kwei-bo of Chengchi University in Taipei noted that pirates and terrorists are rarely reported in the sea, unlike in other waterways. China is the strongest of the claimants, with the country expanding its control since 2010. Chinese often send coast guard ships throughout the waterway. Now China is reportedly building radar systems on as many as three small islands in the sea’s Spratly archipelago. That information comes from researchers at the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative. Chinese state media say the country plans to launch 10 satellites over the sea from 2019 to 2021. Safety against sovereignty While the other claimants oppose Chinese expansion into their maritime exclusive economic zones, they normally set aside disputes in times of crisis, Koh said. Accident prevention “is really the collective (responsibility) of everyone,” he added. “Governments usually issue notices to mariners and shippers on a real-time basis.” Taiwan has rescued ships from Vietnam, which controls small islands near the Spratlys, coast guard officials in Taipei say. In 2015, Taiwan announced that development work on the island, called Taiping or Itu Aba, would be used for humanitarian and disaster assistance. In 2016, navies from the United States and Vietnam started an exchange to guard against unplanned hostilities among ships in East Asia and the Pacific. The U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported on the exchange. The United States does not claim any part of the South China Sea. A few years ago, China’s decision to deploy an oil rig in the sea led to clashes between Chinese and Vietnamese boats. Now, relations between the two sides are much improved. In 2016, China and Vietnam added search-and-rescue operations to the duties of their joint naval patrols in the shared Gulf of Tonkin. In August of 2017, both Malaysia and Singapore helped rescue people from an accident between a U.S. naval destroyer and a Nigerian-registered tanker. Code of conduct A code of conduct for the South China Sea would help improve accident prevention and reaction times for emergencies without affecting the sovereignty disputes, ASEAN officials said last year. It is not clear whether the code will extend to private tankers and trade ships, notes Huang Kwei-bo. He is vice dean of the College of International Affairs at National Chengchi University in Taipei. “I think to take disaster management or crisis management, and then for oil tankers to use that in the (code of conduct), that’s a very justifiable thing,” he added. The code will be based on a declaration made by the Southeast Asian nations in 2002. The Chinese government resisted recognition of the measure until last year. Collin Koh predicted that the code of conduct will include wording on humanitarian efforts. “I think this is one of those lower-hanging fruits that were already floated around amongst ASEAN as well as China on the South China Sea,” he added. “I don’t think this may be a big issue when it comes to the South China Sea, because I think first foremost the imperative is always a humanitarian approach to any such contingency before we talk about sovereignty and all other sort(s) of issues,” he said. I'm Mario Ritter. And I'm Lucija Millonig.   Ralph Jennings reported on this story for VOANews.com. George Grow adapted his report for Learning English. Hai Do was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story surveillance – n. intelligence gathering code of conduct – n. set of rules maritime – adj. of or related to the sea pirate – n. a person who attacks and steals from ships zone – n. area sovereignty – n. right of self-rule or self-control We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

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Don't Play Poker? You Still Can 'Pass the Buck'

  Now, it's time for Words and Their Stories. Each week, we try to have a new story. In these stories, we explain English words and expressions. Often, they come from day-to-day events in our lives and become part of the language. The expression “pass the buck” is an example. A card game may be the origin of this American expression. Gamblers in saloons of the Old West may be responsible for “pass the buck.” To understand how we have to learn about the game of poker – then and now. In poker, each player, one after another, mixes the playing cards, and then passes them out. They deal them. Back then, an object -- often a Buck knife -- was placed in front of a player whose turn it was to deal. A man named Hoyt Buck created the Buck knife back in the early 1900s. As a young blacksmith in Kansas, Buck wanted to find a better way to make knife blades stronger and hold their sharp edge longer. He produced his first Buck knife in 1902 and the family company is still making Buck knives today. But let’s get back to the poker game. Okay, so the person with the marker, or the "buck," in front of them had a decision to make. They could either keep the deal or give it to another player. They would pass the Buck  knife, or other similar marker, when they did not want the responsibility of dealing.  So, today when someone passes the buck, they fail to take responsibility for a problem. They want someone else to solve it. “Pass the buck” led to another American expression. Former President Harry Truman, who enjoyed playing poker, made this one famous. A friend of Truman’s presented him with a small sign for his White House office. The sign said: “The buck stops here.” This meant that Truman was responsible for what happened in the country. The president cannot “pass the buck.” There are other ways to express the meanings of “pass the buck.” You could also say “avoid responsibility” or even “evade responsibility.” If you shift the blame, you try to make someone else take responsibility for something you did. Many work places have these types of people. For whatever reason, they are unable to take responsibility for their mistakes. These types of people try to shift the blame to others. When you evade responsibility, you refuse to own up to something you did. You can also evade responsibility for something you failed to do. However, evading responsibility does not necessarily mean placing it on someone else. “Passing the buck” does – you force someone else to deal with a problem or issue. Sometimes we simply say we “own it” -- “it" being the mistake. If you “own” something that has gone wrong, you take full responsibility for it. We also say things like, “That’s on me!” or “My bad!” These are very casual and common ways of saying, “It’s my fault!” Now, let’s hear the words and expressions in a short dialogue. A: Okay, so our meeting with the client is tomorrow at 4 pm. They want to see a mock-up of our interactive web page. I have all the content written. Are you finished with the draft yet? B: Um, Allen is making the draft web page. A: He told me that you wanted to do it. B: I did not say that. My job is to find images and videos. He is trying to pass the buck … again! A: Yeah, he does that a lot, doesn’t he. Well, we need something to show the client tomorrow. Do you have the images? B: Yeah, they’re on this flash drive. Wait. Where is the flash drive? A: I don’t know. B: Oh man! I do! I left it on the train coming into work today. A: So, let me get this straight. Our meeting with the client is tomorrow afternoon and we don’t have a web page or images. B: Losing the images is on me. I’ll load another flash drive today. But I have nothing to do with the web page! A: Don’t worry about that. I’m project manager. So, ultimately the buck stops with me. You just get me the videos and photos by close of business. I’ll take care of the rest. B: Got it! And that’s the end of this Words and Their Stories. Practice using one of the expressions you heard here. Describe a time when maybe you passed the buck or owned up to a mistake! I’m Anna Matteo.   You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, Know when to walk away, and know when to run. You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table. There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealings done.   Anna Matteo wrote this story with some historical research written by Deborah Potter. Caty Weaver was the editor. The song at the end is Kenny Rogers singing "The Gambler." ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   origin – n. rise, beginning, or derivation from a source gambler – n. one who risks something of value for the chance of winning a prize saloon – n. a place where alcoholic drinks are served especially : such a place in the western U.S. during the 19th century deal – v. card games : to distribute (playing cards) to players blacksmith – n. a person who makes or repairs things made of iron (such as knives or horseshoes) evade – v. to avoid dealing with or facing (something) shift – v. to go or to cause (something) to go from one person or thing to another fault – n. responsibility for a problem, mistake, bad situation, etc. mock-up – n. a working sample (as of a magazine) for reviewing format, layout, or content interactive – adj. designed to respond to the actions, commands, etc., of a user draft – n. a version of something (such as a document) that you make before you make the final version ultimately – adv. in the end

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US Army Dog Recognized for Heroic Action During World War II

  A United States Army dog has been recognized for his actions during the Allied invasion of Sicily in World War II. A dog named “Chips” was posthumously awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal earlier this week at a ceremony in London. The medal recognizes the heroic actions of animals serving in military conflict. The award is presented by a British group: the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals. A good choice Chips’ life began as a much loved pet of the Wren family in Pleasantville, New York. A neighboring family offered the dog to the Wrens when he was a puppy. John Wren, who was a young boy at the time, remembers his parents’ reaction to the small animal. “The runt of the litter was this German Shepherd-husky mix thing. And they said to my mother, ‘Would you like him?’ And she said, ‘I’d love to have him.’ So, she took him, and she named him Chips. And he responded well, and he was smart and obeyed well. And then the war effort came on, and they asked for canines, or dogs, to go into the K9 Corps. And they thought he was a perfect fit for it. Although they were sorry to have to do it, they knew it was the right thing to do. And they did it…” Chips easily passed his military entrance tests. He then joined the Third Infantry Regiment of the Seventh U.S. Army and was sent to North Africa. In January 1943, Chips helped to guard the Casablanca Conference in Morocco, where then-U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to plan the war. The same year in July, Chips joined "Operation Husky," the Allied invasion force landing on the Italian island of Sicily. Lieutenant Colonel Alan Throop spoke at the award ceremony on Monday. He said that during the invasion, enemy forces shot at and attacked Chip’s team. Throop said the dog broke away and forced the surrender of the enemy machine gun team.  Chips’ handler described how the dog entered the machine gun shelter, and came out with his jaws around the neck of a German soldier. Chips’ handler had to tell the dog to stop before the man was killed.  During the incident, Chips suffered burns and injuries, but survived.  He also saved the lives of the soldiers in his platoon. Later, the army awarded Chips the Silver Star and nominated him for the Distinguished Service Cross. However, the medals were later withdrawn after criticism that they were not meant for animals. Chips survived the war and returned to the United States. John Wren, who was four at the time, was there to welcome Chips when he arrived. ​A hero, finally honored More than 70 years later, Chips finally received an award for his actions.  At the ceremony on Monday, Ayron, a U.S. military working dog based in Britain, and Throop accepted the award on Chips’ behalf. The presentation took place at the Churchill War Rooms, named after the former British prime minister. Winston Churchill’s great-grandson, Randolph Churchill, attended the ceremony. Wren said he is thankful for the Dickin Medal. “It’s just a nice way of honoring a war hero,” he told VOA. I’m Phil Dierking.   Henry Ridgwell reported this story for VOANews.com. Phil Dierking adapted his report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. Do you animals should receive awards for heroic actions?  We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   distinguished - adj. known by many people because of some quality or achievement​ behalf - n. as a representative of someone​ handler - n. a person who trains or controls an animal​ jaw - n. either one of the two bones of the face where teeth grow​ posthumously - adv. happening, done, or published after someone's death​ platoon - n. a group of soldiers that includes two or more squads usually led by one lieutenant​ pet - n. an animal that people keep mainly for pleasure​ runt - n.  the smallest animal in a group that is born to one mother at the same time​  

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'A Princess of Mars,' by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part Two

  Editor's Note: Last week we brought you the first of four programs called “A Princess of Mars.”  Our story is from a series of books by American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. They are science fiction stories, a mix of imagination and science. Last week, we met John Carter who begins the story. He enters a cave deep in the desert in the state of Arizona. There something happens. He does not know how, but he has been transported to the Red Planet, Mars. He quickly learns that gravity on Mars is much less than on Earth. The lack of gravity makes him very strong. He can even jump very high without trying. He finds a low wall that surrounds a group of eggs. The eggs are opening. Out come small, fierce-looking green creatures. When we left John Carter, a green adult creature carrying a long sharp spear was coming toward him. Paul Thompson adapted this story was adapted for VOA Learning English. Paul Thompson and Mario Ritter produced it. Shep O’Neal was the voice of John Carter. Steve Ember was Tars Tarkas. And Barbara Klein was Sola. And now, the second program in our series, “A Princess of Mars.” JOHN CARTER: The creature with the spear was huge. There were many other similar creatures. They had ridden behind me on the backs of large animals. Each of them carried a collection of strange-looking weapons. The one with the large spear got down from the back of his animal and began walking toward me.  He was almost five meters tall and a dark green color. Huge teeth stuck out of his face, and his expression showed much hate and violence. I immediately knew I was facing a terrible warrior. He began moving quickly toward me with the spear. I was completely unarmed. I could not fight. My only chance was to escape. I used all my strength to jump away from him. I was able to jump almost thirty meters. The green Martian stopped and watched my effort. I would learn later that the look on his face showed complete surprise. The creatures gathered and talked among themselves. While they talked, I thought about running away. However, I noticed several of them carried devices that looked very much like rifles. I could not run. Soon, all but one of the creatures moved away. The one who had threatened me stayed. He slowly took off a metal band from his arm and held it out to me. He spoke in a strange language. JOHN CARTER: Slowly, he laid down his weapons. I thought this would have been a sign of peace anywhere on Earth…why not on Mars, too? I walked toward him and in a normal voice announced my name and said I had come in peace. I knew he did not understand, but like me, he took it to mean that I meant no harm. Slowly, we came together. He gave me the large metal band that had been around his arm. He turned and made signs with his hands that I should follow him. Soon we arrived at the large animal he had been riding. He again made a sign with his hands that I should ride on the same animal behind him. The group turned and began riding across the land. We moved quickly toward mountains in the distance. JOHN CARTER: The large animals we rode moved quickly across the land. I could tell from the surrounding mountains that we were on the bottom of a long dead sea. In time we came to a huge city. At first I thought the city was empty. The buildings all were empty and in poor repair. But soon I saw hundreds of the green warriors. I also saw green women and children. I soon learned about many cities like this. The cities were built hundreds of years ago by a people that no longer existed. The green Martians used the cities. They moved from one empty city to another, never stopping for more than a day or two. We got down from our animals and walked into a large building. We entered a room that was filled with fierce green warriors. It was not difficult to tell that these were the leaders of the green Martians. One of them took hold of my arm. He shook me and lifted me off the ground. He laughed when he did so. I was to learn that green Martians only laugh at the pain or suffering of others. This huge warrior threw me to the ground and then took hold of my arm again to pick me up. I did the only thing I could do. I hit him with my closed fist as hard as I could. The green warrior fell to the floor and did not move. The others in the room grew silent. I had knocked down one of their warriors with only my hand. I moved away from him and prepared to defend myself as best I could. But they did not move. The green Martian that had captured me walked toward me. He said in a clear voice: TARS TARKAS: "TARS TARKAS -- TARS TARKAS.” JOHN CARTER: As he spoke, he pointed to his own chest. He was telling me his name! I pointed to my chest and said my name, “John Carter.” He turned and said the word, “Sola.” Immediately, a green Martian woman came close. He spoke to her. She led me to another building and into a large room. The room was filled with equipment carried by the green Martians. She prepared something for me to eat. I was very hungry.   I pointed to her and said the word “Sola.” She pointed at me and said my name. It was a beginning. Sola was my guard.   She also became my teacher. In time she would become a close and valued friend. As I ate my meal, my lessons in the language of the green Martians continued. JOHN CARTER: Two days later, Tars Tarkas came to my room. He carried the weapons and the metal armbands the green warriors wear. He put them on the ground near my feet. Sola told him I now understood some of their language. He turned to me and spoke slowly. TARS TARKAS: The warrior you hit is dead. His weapons and the metal of his rank are yours, John Carter. He was a leader of one small group among our people. Because you have killed him, you now are a leader. You are still a captive and not free to leave. However you will be treated with the respect you have earned. You are now a warrior among our people. JOHN CARTER: Tars Tarkas turned and spoke softly. From beyond the door a strange creature entered the room. It was bigger than a large dog and very ugly. It had rows of long teeth and ten very short legs.  Tars Tarkas spoke to the creature and pointed at me. He left. The creature looked at me, watching closely. Then Sola spoke about the creature. SOLA: His name is Woola. The men of our tribe use them in hunting and war. He has been told to guard and protect you. He has also been told to prevent your escape. There is no faster creature in our world.  And in a fight they can kill very quickly. Do not try to escape, John Carter. Woola will tear you to small pieces. JOHN CARTER: I continued to watch the creature named Woola. I had already seen how the green Martians treated other animals. They were very cruel. I thought, perhaps this beast can be taught to be my friend…much like a dog on Earth. I walked close to the creature and began speaking in much the same way I would speak to a dog or other animal on Earth. I sat down next to him while I talked softly. At first he seemed confused. I believe the creature Woola had never heard a kind word. For the next several days I gained the trust and friendship of Woola. In a few short days Woola was my friend and fierce protector. He would remain my loyal friend as long as I was on Mars. JOHN CARTER: Several days later, Sola came to me with a look of great concern. SOLA: John Carter…come with me. A great battle is about to take place. An enemy is coming near this city. We must prepare to fight and we must be ready to flee. JOHN CARTER: Sola, what enemy is this? SOLA: A race of red men who travel our world in flying machines. A great number of their machines have come over the far mountain. Take your weapons with you and hurry. JOHN CARTER: I collected my sword and a spear. I hurried out of the building and joined a group of warriors moving toward the end of the city. Far in the distance I could see the air ships. They were firing large guns at the green warriors. I heard huge explosions. The green warriors were firing back with their deadly rifles. The air was filled with the sound of violent battle. Suddenly a huge air ship exploded.  It came down, crashing near me. Red Martians were falling from the side of the huge ship. And then it exploded! Join us again next week at this time as we continue “A Princess of Mars” in VOA Learning English. Download activities to help you understand this story here. Now it’s your turn to use these Words in This Story. In the comments section, write a sentence using one of these words and we will provide feedback on your use of vocabulary and grammar. _______________________________________________________________ QUIZ ________________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   spear - n.  a weapon that has a long straight handle and a sharp point warrior - n. a person who fights in battles and is known for having courage and skill device - n. an object, machine, or piece of equipment that has been made for some special purpose equipment - n. supplies or tools needed for a special purpose armband - n. a band worn around the arm, esp. to show who you are

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Has #MeToo Gone Too Far

  Large numbers of women consider the #MeToo movement an important step toward countering widespread sexual abuse and wrongdoing. But this week, there has been talk of the possible harm the movement may cause. The discussion began after the publication of a story about a woman identified only as “Grace.” The website Babe.net published the account. “Grace” told of her 2017 encounter with comedian Aziz Ansari. The article suggested that Ansari should be included in the growing list of abusive men in entertainment. Yet many readers -- both women and men -- believe the woman’s encounter was simply an example of a bad date and a bad sexual experience. Ansari has said he apologized immediately after the woman told him about her discomfort during the encounter. He said he believed the sexual experience was consensual. But his career may already be damaged. Michael Cunningham teaches psychology at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He said the Grace/Ansari encounter is an example of a misunderstanding between two people. “It appears that Grace wanted Ansari to treat her as a potential girlfriend to be courted over multiple dates, rather than a pickup from a party engaging in a mutually acceptable transaction,” Cunningham wrote in an email. “When he did not rise to her expectations, she converted her understandable disappointment into a false #MeToo.” Carole Lieberman is a psychiatrist in Beverly Hills, California. She said, “too many women have joined #metoo too quickly and unthinkingly.” “Though they may have wanted to be in solidarity with other women, the stories of dates gone wrong or women scorned have detracted from women who have been raped or seriously sexually assaulted,” she said. Online and in person, many women are talking about experiences similar to Grace’s story -- encounters with men who seemed wonderful at first, but become aggressive, or even criminally abusive, when things became sexual. Sarah Hosseini writes about sex. She said the #MeToo movement is big enough to include experiences such as Grace’s. “What she experienced with Ansari is not OK. But do we have language yet for intimate encounters that teeter on the edge of absolute sexual assault/abuse?” she asked. “I don’t think we do.” Liz Wolfe is editor of Young Voices, an organization in Washington, DC that publishes opinion pieces written by young people. Wolfe has noticed a generational divide in reactions. Older women seem to think Grace should have been more vocal and assertive, or simply left Ansari’s apartment. Younger women feel that Ansari should have read Grace’s body language and listened to her more closely, and he was at fault for pressuring her. Among men, there are also many different views. Tahir Duckett is with ReThink, a nonprofit seeking to stop boys and young men from committing sexual assault. He says the #MeToo movement “is exactly where it needs to be” as it continues to empower victims. “This moment absolutely calls for a changed approach to dating,” he said. “It means paying just as much attention to body language as we do to words.” However, Glenn Sacks, who writes often about men’s issues, said the Ansari case supports his belief that #MeToo is including “trivial mistakes or misdeeds of the many in with the genuinely awful actions” of a few. Warren Farrell has written such books as “Why Men Are the Way they Are” and “The Boy Crisis.” He suggested that women should bear more of the responsibility for beginning sexual interest. And he recommended training in schools for both boys and girls to view relationship issues from the other’s perspective. I’m Dorothy Gundy.   Ashley Thompson adapted this story from the Associated Press. Hai Do was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   encounter - n. a meeting that is not planned or expected consensual - adj. agreed to by the people involved potential - adj. capable of becoming real mutually - adv. in an equal way for each person or group involved scorn - v. to refuse or reject detract - v. to reduce value, strength or importance of something teeter - v. to move in an unsteady way back and forth trivial - adj. not important genuinely - adv. sincere and honest

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Amazon Announced Choices for Possible Second Headquarters

  The online seller Amazon has announced a list of 20 possible places where the company might build a second headquarters. Included on the list is the city of Toronto in the Canadian Province of Ontario. Amazon expects the new headquarters, which Amazon calls “HQ2,” to employ 50,000 people. Amazon estimated that, over the next 10 to 15 years, “HQ2” will generate jobs that average over $100,000 in yearly pay. Thursday’s announcement comes four months after the company first started accepting bids. The list, which was cut down from a total of 238 areas, includes major cities such as Chicago, New York City and Washington D.C. Smaller cities such as Raleigh, North Carolina and Columbus, Ohio were also included. In the Northeast, Boston; Newark, New Jersey; Philadelphia and Pittsburg were selected as possible choices. Montgomery County, Maryland and Northern Virginia; and the southern cities of Atlanta; Austin and Dallas, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Miami are up for consideration. Toronto was the only place chosen outside of the U.S. Los Angeles was the only city on the West Coast and Indianapolis was the only city in the Midwest. Amazon's main headquarters is in Seattle, Washington. Amazon’s announcement marks the beginning of a competition between the bidders. “HQ2” is expected to bring in billions of dollars in both revenue and secondary investment. Amazon’s plan for expansion shows the influence technology companies have on the economy. On Wednesday, technology company Apple announced plans to create thousands of jobs and build a new campus. Some of the competing bidders have publically announced their plans to provide Amazon with billions of dollars in reduced taxes if they are chosen. Jason Lary, the mayor of Stonecrest, Georgia, near Atlanta, has proposed using 140 hectares of land in his town to create a new city he called Amazon. Lary said Amazon’s chief executive officer, Jeff Bezos, can be the city’s mayor for life. New Jersey has offered Amazon $7 billion in tax reductions if Newark is chosen as the future site for “HQ2.” Amazon officials say they expect to make a decision sometime this year. The company plans to hold discussions with all 20 bidders about the project. I’m Mario Ritter.   Rachel Dennis adapted it for VOA Learning English from a Reuters story. Mario Ritter was the editor. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   revenue- n. the money being made by a company generate –v. to cause something to be created or produced bid –n.  an offer of money for whatever is being sold campus –n. the area and buildings around a university, college, school or technology company We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments section, and visit our Facebook page.

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Two Giant Pandas Arrive in Snowy Finland

  Two giant pandas arrived in Finland Thursday. They are a gift from China to mark the small European nation’s 100 years of independence. The two are a four-year-old male panda, named Hua Bao, and a three-year-old female, named Jin Baobao. Finnish officials and the Chinese ambassador to Finland welcomed the animals in a ceremony at Helsinki’s airport. “We think this is the best gift that Chinese people can give to Finland,” said the ambassador, Chen Li. He was speaking about the country’s 100th anniversary in December 2017. The pandas have been renamed. Their new, Finnish names are Pyry -- or “Snowfall” -- for the male, and Lumi -- or “Snow” -- for the female. Finnish panda keeper Anna Palmroth said the 6,500-kilometer flight from Chengdu, China to Helsinki went smoothly. She said the pandas spent most of the time resting and eating bamboo, carrots and apples. Shortly after arrival, the pandas began a trip to the Ahtari Zoo nature reserve in central Finland, about 330 kilometers north of Helsinki. The Associated Press reports that the cold weather on Thursday was similar to conditions in China’s mountain areas. The two countries agreed on the panda deal in April 2017, when Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Helsinki for talks with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto. The Ahtari Zoo specializes in northern European animals such as bears and lynxes. The zoo will have the giant pandas for 15 years. It has built a special Panda House annex in hopes of receiving more visitors. The building project cost an estimated nearly 8 million euros. For more than half a century, the Chinese government has used “panda diplomacy” as a sign of goodwill and closer relations with other countries. In 1972, the United States received two giant pandas after U.S. President Richard Nixon’s historic visit to China. More than 1 million people came to see the pandas during their first year at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. I'm Susan Shand. This story was reported by the Associated Press. It was adapted by Susan Shand and edited by George Grow. _____________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   bamboo – n. a tall, woody plant with hard hollow stems that can be used for food, building materials and furniture zoo – n. a place where many kinds of wild animals are kept reserve – n. an area where animals or plants are given special protection  

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What It Takes - Quincy Jones

00:00:00    ALICE WINKLER: Welcome to What It Takes. Today's episode is bubbling over with stories from one of the most influential figures in American music, Quincy Jones. What It Takes, of course, is a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement's archive. I'm Alice Winkler.   00:00:25    OPRAH WINFREY: "Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.   00:00:31    ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.   00:00:37    LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.   00:00:41    DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.   00:00:49    CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide.”   00:00:57    JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.   00:01:02    JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.   00:01:14    ALICE WINKLER: If you listened to popular music during the 20th century — and the 21st — you have heard the work of Quincy Jones. He might have been the trumpeter or the conductor or the arranger when you heard him. He might have been the composer or the producer or the creator of the movie score. He might have been nurturing a band you love that he signed when he was head of a record label, but one way or another, I guarantee you, you have heard the work of Quincy Jones.   00:01:43    MUSIC: FLY ME TO THE MOON   00:01:44    Fly me to the moon              Let me play among the stars              Let me see what spring is like              On Jupiter and Mars              In other words, hold my hand              In other words, baby, kiss me   00:02:14    ALICE WINKLER: Sitting down to pull this episode together, frankly, has been daunting because covering Quincy Jones’s life and career means covering everybody from Count Basie and Ray Charles to Frank Sinatra and Billy Holiday and Aretha Franklin to Michael Jackson and Paul Simon to LL Cool J and Mary J. Blige. It means covering 65 years' worth of jazz and rock and soul and R&B and pop.   00:02:45    MUSIC: BILLY JEAN   00:02:47    She was more like a beauty queen              From a movie scene I said, “Don't mind, but what do you mean I am the one Who will dance on the floor in the round?”   00:03:00    ALICE WINKLER: We cannot possibly get to all of it, but what we will get to is who Quincy Jones is, where he came from, and what has made him the music machine he is. While I’ve been talking, you’ve been hearing snippets of music Quincy Jones ushered into this world. Before we hear his story, let's listen to just a little more.   00:03:22    MUSIC: HEY! BA BA RE BOP   00:03:22    Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop (Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop) Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop (Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop) Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop (Hey! Ba-Ba-Re-Bop)   00:03:31    MUSIC: RELAX MAX   00:03:33    Relax, Max Your nerves are just like jumping jacks, Max Your heart is thumping   00:03:42    MUSIC: IT'S MY PARTY   00:03:43    It's my party and I'll cry if I want to Cry if I want to Cry if I want to You would cry too if it happened to you   00:03:56    MUSIC: IRONSIDE (THEME)   00:04:10    MUSIC: SANFORD AND SON (THEME)   00:04:16    MUSIC: IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT   00:04:16    In the heat of the night Seems like a cold sweat Creeping cross my brow Yeah   00:04:33    MUSIC: SOMETHING SO RIGHT   00:04:33    They’ve got a wall in China              It's a thousand miles long              To keep out the foreigners              They made it strong              And I’ve got a wall   00:04:51    MUSIC: SUMMERTIME   00:05:01    QUINCY JONES:    The most important part of an artist's responsibility is to be a great observer, you know. If it's in human nature or nature or just to pay attention — the rhythm of every music in the world is because it's taken straight from nature. The birds did not imitate flutes. It's the reverse. Or thunder didn't imitate the drums, you know. It was the reverse. And so the elements of nature, when it comes from — that's the most powerful force there is.   00:05:30     It's like a melody. You can study orchestration. You can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God. There's really no technique for melodies, really. And so that's — I guess there's something about music that has always fascinated me, and I apply what the essence of that's about in everything I do, whether we do film or magazines or whatever it is. You can't touch it. You can't taste it. You can't smell it. You can't see it. You just feel it, and it hangs in the air. It owns — it dominates — every time period, you know.   00:06:04     String quartets had their own time period, and nobody can ever change it because it's hanging up there in heaven some place.   00:06:10    MUSIC: I CAN’T STOP LOVING YOU     00:06:15     ALICE WINKLER: The Academy of Achievement recorded this conversation in 2000. The interviewer was journalist Irv Drasnin. There’s also a 1995 interview in the Academy’s archive that I’ll pull from for this episode. What I found so striking in both conversations was the range and depth of Quincy Jones’s interests and expertise. He’s had the creative output of a dozen people, literally, and yet he has still found time for deep dives into philosophy, politics, science, history, you name it.   00:06:51     All that knowledge has fueled his outlook and his music, as have the dramatic, challenging circumstances of his childhood.   00:07:02     QUINCY JONES:    We were in the heart of the ghetto in Chicago during the Depression, and every block — it was probably the biggest black ghetto in America. Every block also was the spawning ground practically for every gangster, black and white, in America, too. So we were around all of that. We saw that every day. There was a policeman named Two Gun Pete, a black policeman, who used to shoot teenagers in the back every weekend, and everything happened there all the time.   00:07:31     A gang on every street — the Vagabonds, the Giles HC, the Scorpions, and just on and on — and in each gang they had the dukes and duchess, junior and senior, which accommodated everybody in the neighborhood. That was the whole idea of unity, really. And our biggest struggle every day was we were either running from gangs or with gangs, and it was just getting to school and back home, because if your parents aren't home all day, you know, it's a notorious trek.   00:08:04     I still have the metals here from the switchblade through my hand pinned to a tree. I had an ice pick here in the temple one time. You know, but when you're young nothing harms you, nothing scares you, anything. You don't know any better. And the schools were the roughest schools probably in America. I saw teachers getting hurt and maimed and everything every day, and it was everyday stuff.   00:08:31     And it's amazing. Young people get used to things very quickly, even languages. And some summers my father would take us down to visit our grandmother in Louisville, who was an ex-slave, Susan Jones, and she had a shotgun shack, they call it, and no electricity, a well in the back, a coal stove, kerosene lamps. We used to take baths. They'd have these big coal, heavy, black iron pots.   00:09:05     They'd take the top off of the stove to get it heated quicker and wait and wait and wait until it boils, and then you pour it in a big tin tub on the floor, and then it would take you another 20 minutes to do that. I mean, I remember the process and all. She used to say, "Go down to the river and grab the rats that still have their tails moving." She'd cook the rats. She'd take greens out of the backyard and cooked the greens, fried the rats with onions and so forth on a coal stove. And you'd see, like, almost ice on the floor at night, you know, it was so cold in the wintertime in Kentucky.   00:09:40     And a lot of these things I didn't want to really deal with. I asked my brother before he died, you know, I said, "You know, is this an aberration in my mind?" And he said, "What are you talking about? That's the way it was." And he kind of affirmed everything that really happened.   00:09:55    MUSIC: THE MIDNIGHT SUN WILL NEVER SET   00:10:03     ALICE WINKLER: And there was another thing that really happened in Quincy Jones’s life, something that he buried safely in his past for six decades.   00:10:12     QUINCY JONES:    At about five or seven years old, my mother was placed in a mental institution, and so we were with our father, who worked very hard, and we had to figure a lot of things out. So we spent most of our life almost like we were kind of street rats just running around the street, you know, until we were ten years old. My father worked for Julian Black, the people that ran Joe Louis’s life.   00:10:41     Joe Louis lived in one of the buildings we lived in, and after one of the fights, he gave the gloves to my father, and a kid down the street had a BB gun that I wanted. And so when my father went to work I took the gloves and traded the gloves for a BB gun, and my father wore my tail out and went over to get the gloves back.   00:11:05    MUSIC: SERMONETTE   00:11:13     ALICE WINKLER: When his dad returned, he brought a woman with him who would become Quincy’s stepmother. She was rough around the edges and not very kind. She’d had a tough life, like a lot of people in the neighborhood, but it was a neighborhood loaded with characters and character.   00:11:32     QUINCY JONES:    We loved all this drama. All kids love that. You know, we used to go to a place called Drexel Wine and Liquor. We would go up these big steps, and the administrative office was upstairs, and you'd see everything you saw on Eliot Ness, The Untouchables — two-way mirrors and so forth. They had tommy guns and hats and cigars. We loved it, and we couldn't understand why Daddy wanted to keep us away from that element.   00:11:57    One day he came by a barbershop, and we were about ten years old, and he said, "We're leaving town."   00:12:03     ALICE WINKLER: Quincy Jones explained that his father was a talented carpenter, so he was in demand and worked for a lot of people — Joe Louis’s manager, but also, two men known as the Jones boys. Now the Jones boys owned a five-and-dime, but according to Quincy Jones, it was a front for their more lucrative and less legal line of work, the numbers racket, or what was then called the policy racket. The Jones boys were not related to Quincy Jones’s family, but their line of work affected his father’s business nonetheless.   00:12:39     QUINCY JONES:    So one day he said, "Let's get out of here," and I think what happened is Capone took over the policy racket from the Jones boys. The Jones boys had to leave town fast, and we were right behind them because Daddy worked with them, so he came and picked us up from the barbershop. "We have to go get our toys." "Forget that." We went straight to the Trailways bus, and the bus took out to Bremerton, Washington — Seattle, Washington — and the ferry. We stopped in Idaho, and we got up to eat. They wouldn't let us eat at the white places, and so we had to go find a black family.   00:13:11    And you have to remember, this is the day when there was no TV, no MTV, no — you had nothing to hold onto your identity with. The books were See Jane Run and See Spot and so forth, and nothing about black history or anything. We're talking about 1943. Radio was Blondie and Dagwood and Gabriel Heatter, and the black figures, there were Rochester, Beulah, and Amos and Andy, who were white, Gosden and Freeman [Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll].   00:13:42     And so it was very — at the time, you don't recognize it, but you're trying to say, "Who the hell am I?" You know, "What are we about?" You know, if you don't have a mother there that leads you down that road, you're trying to figure out who you are. And so we spent half of our lives trying to figure out what was up, what we were all about. Now we go from the biggest ghetto in Chicago to being the only three black kids in Navy Yard City, and there was a serious contrast.   00:14:09     And it dances on your head a little bit because we carried switchblade knives in those days, and the kids in Bremerton didn't know what they were. So you had no — you couldn't use fear anymore like they used on us in Chicago.   00:14:21     MUSIC: SERMONETTE   00:14:33     QUINCY JONES: Basically, we hadn't seen white people before, until we got to Washington. Strange, you know, but the ghetto was so big in Chicago. And they had us outside of the town. We had to walk up a hill three miles, and up there they had a place called Sinclair Heights, which was clearly for all the blacks that came in to work in the Bremerton shipyards, the Navy yard.   00:14:58     And my father used to go down every morning to catch a bus down at the bottom of the hill to go to the Navy yard. And I had a paper route then, so I normally didn't have much time with him, so I'd get up at five thirty with him just to be with him for 15 minutes while he got ready, put his little gray hat on, and went down the hill, and I'd stop at my paper box and watch him go over the hill.   00:15:19     And, anyway, we got into all the trouble you could ever imagine because we figured that if the Jones boys and all the gangsters in Chicago ran Chicago, well, we had our own territory now. All the stores, all the crime, we were in charge of everything, my stepbrother and my brother. It was amazing. Amazing, and — of how much trouble you can get in when you don't have anything else to do.   00:15:46     And I hadn't discovered music yet, and I was 11 and 12 years old, and we did everything. Everything you can imagine. We stole a box of honey jars one time, went out in the woods and took care of the box, and I don't think I touched honey again for 20 years. I never wanted to see honey again. And there was a big armory up there where everybody played basketball, and it was a community center, really. There was an Army camp right there because this was heavy — you know, Seattle and Bremerton were — that was a hot spot during the war because that's where they left to go to Japan.   00:16:21     So it was really — things were happening all the time. And we'd break into this armory at night, the weekends and at night, and we'd eat pie, lemon meringue pie and ice cream. And when we got too tired of eating it we'd start to play — throw it at each other, and whatever trouble you could get in, you know — just awful. One night we went and broke in another door, and I broke into this door, and there was a piano there.   00:16:53     And I just walked around the room to see what was there first, and then hands kind of hit the keyboard. And I remembered from Chicago, next door when I was a kid, there was a little girl named Lucy that used to play piano. And from that moment on, when I touched those keys, I said, "This is it. I'm not going to do the other thing again. I'm going here." That's what happened.   00:17:16     IRV DRASNIN: You were 11 or 12 years old, and you came across this piano.   00:17:20     QUINCY JONES:    Mm-hmm.   00:17:21    IRV DRASNIN: Had you had any...?   00:17:22     QUINCY JONES: No.   00:17:23     IRV DRASNIN: You knew nothing about...?   00:17:24    QUINCY JONES:    No training, no. No, not at all at that time, but then after that, I was probing and probing and waking Ray Charles up when he came to town, waking him up at five and six o'clock in the morning.   00:17:38    IRV DRASNIN: He was a boyhood friend of yours, Ray Charles.   00:17:39    QUINCY JONES: Yes. I was 14 years old when Ray came to town from Florida. He wanted to get away from Florida, and he asked a friend of his — because he had sight until he was seven — to take a string from Florida and get him as far away from Florida as he could get, and boy, Lord knows that's Seattle. That's far — if you go any farther, you're in Alaska and Russia.   00:17:58    MUSIC: NIGHT TIME IS THE RIGHT TIME   00:17:58    You know the night time, darling (Night and day) Is the right time (Night and day) To be (Night and day) With the one you love, now (Night and day) Say now, oh, baby (Night and day)   00:18:13     QUINCY JONES:    And so Ray showed up, and he was around 16 years old, and he was like God, you know. He had an apartment. He had a record player. He had a girlfriend, two or three suits. I mean — and I used to come — and when I first met him, you know, he would invite me over to his place. I couldn't believe it. He was fixing his record player. He would shock himself because there were glass tubes in the back of the record player then, the radio, and I used to just sit around. "I can't believe you're 16 and you've got all this stuff going," because he was like he was 30 then. He was like a brilliant old dude, you know.   00:18:43    He knew how to arrange and everything, and he taught me how to arrange in braille, and the notes — he taught me what the notes were because he understood. He said, "The dotted eighth, a sixteenth, and that's a quarter note and so forth," and I'd just struggle with it and just plowed through it. I didn't understand key signatures in front.   00:19:01     IRV DRASNIN: Well, now wait a minute. So was Ray Charles your first music teacher? Is that what you're telling me?   00:19:06     QUINCY JONES: Well, I played before I met Ray, but I had discovered a trumpet up in Bremerton.   00:19:12     No, he was one of them. Bumps Blackwell was too, and a barber named Eddie Lewis. And then we finally got a formal teacher named Frank Waldron, who was a trumpet teacher, who was African American, with a bald head, and he used to wear striped pants and — like the English Parliament guys. He looked like he stepped out of the Harlem Renaissance or some place. He had a little pint of gin, a little flask, and every night he'd take a sip, you know, at three or four in the afternoon, and he said, "Let me hear you play something."   00:19:44     And he was legit, you know, from the legit Rafael Mendez, you know, the legit trumpet players. We had our be-bop thing, and we had our little look and, you know, and our little swagger, and our fingers all the way over there, and so uncorrect — incorrect, rather. And I played Stardust just like I played it in the nightclubs, because we were playing in nightclubs when we were 13 and 14.   00:20:06     IRV DRASNIN: But how did you learn to play?   00:20:07     QUINCY JONES:    I don't know.   00:20:07     IRV DRASNIN: How did you discover this...   00:20:09    QUINCY JONES: I just started playing.   00:20:10    IRV DRASNIN: ...that music was going to be your ticket in life?   00:20:12    QUINCY JONES: Just start playing. Just do it. Just blow in it and sound bad for about a year, and then make it sound a little bit better, and then you get a few jobs. And you get a little band together, and four guys that sound half-bad, if you are 25% each, we can get 100%, you know.   00:20:27    And so Charlie Taylor and Buddy Catlett, four guys, we got together, and we practiced every day, you know. Every day. And I would write an arrangement, and was writing this thing called A Suite from the Four Winds, and on the trumpet parts I had, with an asterisk, I'd say, "Play all B-naturals a half-step lower because it sounds funny if you play it B-natural straight."   00:20:50    I didn't know there was a key signature of a flat on the third line that would take care of all that. But, you know, you just learn step by step, and somebody was saying, "Idiot! You know there’s one flat and there are two flats and three flats!" And, "Oh, yeah, key signatures. That's a great concept." It's 500 years old, right?   00:21:08    IRV DRASNIN: Did you have any idea that you had this inside of you?   00:21:12    QUINCY JONES: Yeah, but I didn't know what it was. I didn't know — most of my grades in music were terrible before that and — but then the love and this passion came forth, and that's when somebody lit a flame, a candle inside, and that finally — that still burns, you know. It never went out. And I'd stay up all night sometimes until my eyes bled to write the music. I was writing a suite, “Concerto in Blue,” for something at the school, for concert band, and I was fearless.   00:21:39    ALICE WINKLER: In high school, Quincy Jones told journalist Irv Drasnin, not only did he write and arrange, but he also tried out every instrument he could get his hands on: percussion, clarinet, violin, B flat baritone horn, sousaphone, and trombone.   00:21:57    QUINCY JONES:    I got the trombone because the trombone players in the marching band got to be up front with the majorettes because of the slides, and I loved that. But my heart was really with the trumpets, but they were too far back, and I finally got to the trumpet, and I said that's what I really feel. And so, I guess, 1947, we got our first job, for seven dollars, and the year after that we played with Billie Holiday, you know, with the Bumps Blackwell and Charlie Taylor Bands.   00:22:24    And our confidence was building because we danced, we sang, and we played all — we played modern jazz. We played schottisches, pop music at the white tennis clubs, you know. We'd play the black clubs at ten o’clock, you know, and play rhythm and blues and for the strippers and do comedy and everything else. At three o’clock in the morning, we'd go down to Jackson Street in the red light district and play be-bop free all night because that was really what we really wanted to play, like Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Dizzy and all those people, and they'd come through town.   00:22:55    And in the following year, Bobby Tucker, who was Billie Holiday's musical director, came back, and he liked what we did, evidently, and we played with Billy Eckstine, and then Cab Calloway came through. We opened for Cab Calloway, so our confidence was very strong. We were like big fish in small ponds, you know, and that's why at one time in New York most of the guys who were happening by the time they finally got there were not from New York because they got their confidence in the small cities.   00:23:21     And if you start in New York, you’re dealing with the biggest guys, biggest in the world. You're dealing with Charlie Parker and all the big bands and everything.   00:23:28     ALICE WINKLER: Quincy Jones was obviously confident enough about his musical abilities to play with his jazz idols who came through town. But he had a personal confidence, too, that he says came from being good at the odd jobs he held — whether as a shoe shiner or a newspaper boy or a laundry assistant, he did it all. And he got an extra boost of confidence from an unexpected bit of success at the Robert E. Coontz Junior High in Bremerton, Washington.   00:23:58     QUINCY JONES:    You know, there were just a few black kids in the school, like 2,800 kids there. And I'll never forget his name. A little white kid named Robin Fields said, "I'd like to be your manager for you running for Boys Club president." I said, "You've got to be out of your mind. You know, what are you talking about? You know that's never going to happen." And I was wrong, and I won.   00:24:20     And it was messed up because my family, in 1947, they moved to Seattle, and I had to get up at five o’clock every morning to catch the ferry, the Kalakala, and go back to Bremerton every morning because I was Boys Club president. And I'm telling you, that really put a hurting on my sleeping time because I couldn't write music late at night.   00:24:37     IRV DRASNIN: How do you account for that? Black kid in a white school...   00:24:40     QUINCY JONES:    I have no idea.   00:24:40     IRV DRASNIN: ...and you become Boys Club president.   00:24:42     QUINCY JONES: I don't know. I have no idea. I bet — it was amazing, though, but it opened up — what it did to me back then is it made me realize that I had to take everybody one-on-one. It really did. I mean that was really clear to me because I couldn't say, "Bang, this is this, and everybody is this, and they're like this," and all that stuff, the things we usually do as human beings.   00:25:12     I couldn't do it because Robin Fields was there and I couldn't put him in that number. I couldn't include him in that number, and it was great for me.   00:25:20     ALICE WINKLER: That lesson would help him endure what he was about to endure as a black musician, a kid, traveling throughout America. It’s not that Seattle in the '40s was without racism, but...   00:25:33     QUINCY JONES:    Then we hit the road, and we'd get to places like Texas. This is when every place had white and colored to wait in the bus stations and the water fountains all over America. You couldn't stay in a white hotel anywhere. We played dances in New Orleans, and they'd have chairs straight down the middle of the thing with — chairs to go both ways, white on this side and that side. Other places in New Orleans — I mean in North Carolina and South Carolina — they'd have $2.50 and $3.50 general admission for the black people. White spectators were $1.50.   00:26:07     I still have the signs, you know. And they'd sit upstairs and drink and watch the black people dance, you know. Oh, it was unbelievable. We played juke joints, and people would get shot, and we'd go through Texas. We always had a white bus driver because we couldn't stop at the restaurants, and sometimes we'd see effigies like black dummies hanging by nooses from the church steeples in Texas.   00:26:30     Like, that's pretty heavy, on the church steeple, and they've got a black dummy hung, which means, “Don't stop. Don't even think about coming here.” And the bus kept moving, you know. And then they'd finally get to places where we'd get the driver — the white driver would go in and get food for the band, and sometimes in Newport News we slept — I remember Jimmy Scott and I slept in a funeral parlor where the bodies were.   00:26:55     There was no hotel, so this guy said, "I've got a place. You can stay here these two days," and we got 17 dollars a night. You can't — you know, you're not thinking about some suite at the Waldorf, you know.   00:27:05     IRV DRASNIN: What does that do to you psychologically?   00:27:07     QUINCY JONES: It's painful. It's a killer. It slaps your dignity just right in the — all of the things that I loved about the idea of these proud, dignified black men and the bands and so forth. And I saw the older ones wounded, and it wounded me ten times as much because I couldn't stand seeing them hurt like this, you know. And I know their mentality and their sense of humor, their wit, their intelligence and everything, totally aware of it, and I'd see people with one-tenth of this, you know — or taking the stance of trying to degrade them, you know, trying to be a giant and make a midget out of them to feel bigger.   00:27:45     And I saw it over and over and over and over and over again. It was amazing. I mean, we'd — and the thing about it is when you're unified, you'd get a sense of humor about it, or else you’d either have to get really — and we had confrontations all the time. Please. We had the police run us out of town many a time, you know. And they'd have the joke, you know — you go in a place, you know, they'd always say, "We don't serve niggers here." We'd say, "That's cool. We don't eat them."   00:28:10     I mean, it was — you know, you just have to get an attitude about it, you know, because it just — you can't let it take you out like that, you know.   00:28:16     ALICE WINKLER: Quincy Jones says his world was turned upside down once again when he got to travel to Europe for the first time at 19.   00:28:25     QUINCY JONES:    It turned me upside down in many ways. It gave you some sense of perspective of past, present, and future. It took the myopic conflict between just black and white in the United States and put it on another level because you saw the turmoil between the Armenians and the Turks, and the Cypriots and the Greeks, and the Swedes and the Danes, and the Koreans and the Japanese — everybody was — had these hassles, and you saw it was part of — basic part of human nature, these conflicts. And it opened up — it opened my soul. It opened my mind.   00:29:03     ALICE WINKLER: And then, in 1956, when he was 23 years old, Quincy Jones organized a State Department trip for Dizzy Gillespie. Another voyage, another revelation.   00:29:16     QUINCY JONES:    Obviously, you know, when they send a black band around the world as ambassadors, you're going to do a lot of kamikaze work, and we did. We — they sent us to all — what they called Hardship Post #4 in Washington. That's — they have categories, and you know, all the plum jobs are in London and France, the ambassadors, and so forth. And USIS, in the other parts of the world, was pretty screwed up.   00:29:39    And so we went to Abadan, Iran, and Tehran, and Dhaka, Pakistan, Karachi, and Istanbul, Damascus — which is the dirtiest place in the world — and it was very exciting. Some of these people had never seen Western instruments before, and we got a last-minute call one time from the White House to go immediately from Istanbul and go to Athens, Greece because the Cypriot students were stoning the embassy, and whenever that happened we got called immediately to go in there and play for these same kids.   00:30:18     And that was pretty scary because you could feel the energy and the hostility against whatever policy was going wrong at that time, whether it was Beirut and Israel or the Cypriots and the Greeks. And after that concert, they rushed the stage, the kids, and we thought we were in trouble. Instead, they put Dizzy Gillespie on their shoulders, and they were just running around the auditorium singing to him and everything else. It was great.   00:30:46     ALICE WINKLER: Back home, though, the Civil Rights Movement was just starting to build steam, and there was plenty of reality to contend with for a young black musician.   00:30:55     IRV DRASNIN: But it doesn't seem to have left you feeling bitter in any way.   00:30:58     QUINCY JONES: Well, you know, the thing is, yeah, it makes me — it's angry. It makes you angry, but I always felt that, though, to harness that anger, you know, let's do something that's going to mean something, you know. And so, if you punch some dude out, you know, that doesn't do anything because as you're going down, they say, "You're still a nigger," you know. And I've seen that happen. So that doesn't straighten — so that's why I get involved in all the battles there are but on another kind of a level, you know.   00:31:27     When I was in France, Mandela asked me to come down. I've been involved with South Africa and Mandela for 30 years, because you have to do something. I mean, in silence it's — you're fighting for your dignity of your children, your grandchildren, and the kids that shouldn't even be subjected to this kind of a thing.   00:31:47     ALICE WINKLER: Quincy Jones has been involved in a lot of causes over the years. He was active in Martin Luther King’s Operation Breadbasket and Jesse Jackson's Operation Push, and he produced one of the top-selling songs of all time to raise money for victims of the famine in Ethiopia.   00:32:05     MUSIC: WE ARE THE WORLD   00:32:05    There comes a time when we heed a certain call When the world must come together as one There are people dying Oh, and it's time to lend a hand to life The greatest gift of all We can't go on   00:32:34     ALICE WINKLER: We Are the World involved many of the most popular musicians of the 1980s, dozens of them, actually: Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Stevie Wonder, and on. If anyone was capable of gathering together that kind of star power, it was Quincy Jones. Somehow, from the time he was a young teenager, he was able to find a place at the table with the greatest artists of the day.   00:32:59     They helped him grow, and he made them sound the best that they could. That was, and is, one of his magic powers. Here he describes how he came to join forces with Lionel Hampton's band while he was still in high school.   00:33:14     QUINCY JONES: Well, Lionel Hampton's band came through Seattle then, too. That was a very significant thing in my life, because as I said before, we played with Bumps Blackwell's band and Charlie Taylor's band for Billie Holiday, and then Billy Eckstine at 14 and 15 years old. So Hamp came through there then, and that was my dream to be with that band, more than any band. Because I saw every band that came through — Stan Kenton, Basie, Duke, Louis Armstrong, everybody. I was out in front, hypnotized, every night. I just couldn't believe it, that there is the way to be a man, to have your dignity, to be proud of what you do, and there were 18 musicians.   00:33:53    There was something about it that just really hit a serious chord in me, and I wanted to know everything about it. That’s why I wanted to write so quickly, and as soon as I picked up the trumpet, I heard arrangements in my head of those ensembles. How do you write for 18 musicians or eight brass and five saxes and not have them playing the same notes?   00:34:13    ALICE WINKLER: Lionel Hampton somehow heard about this 15-year-old who was writing and orchestrating a complex piece called The Four Winds Suite, and he invited Quincy Jones to join his band.   00:34:25    QUINCY JONES:    I hurried up and got on the bus. I didn't want to ask my parents or anybody, wouldn't take a chance of losing it. And I got there, and I just shut up like a little mouse, and everybody got on the bus. It was almost ready to take off, and Gladys Hampton got on and said, "What's that child doing on this bus?" And I said, "Oh, my God." She said, "Lionel, get that boy off of — that's a child. That's not a grown-up. Put him back in school," you know. She said, "I'm sorry, son, but you know, you're too young. Go back to school," and I was destroyed, you know. And so she says, "We'll talk about it later."   00:34:52     ALICE WINKLER: And they did, but during the intervening years, he finished high school in Seattle and landed a spot in a prestigious East Coast music school, far, far from his father and difficult stepmother — and his schizophrenic mother, who’d gotten out of the psychiatric hospital in Chicago and followed them out west to Washington State.   00:35:14     QUINCY JONES:    And I really wanted to get away from home. I wanted to get out of that house. I didn't want to be there. Eight kids and a stepmother, and I just wanted to be out of there. And so when I got a scholarship from Boston to the Schillinger House, which is now the Berkelee School of Music, I couldn't wait to get out of there. And my aunt sent me a ticket by train to go there. I stopped in Chicago, and I went to Boston at night.   00:35:37     The most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life because it was pitch black, and you get there, and you've got your trumpet and this little bag, your bag of clothes, not much, no place to stay. But I had a scholarship, and that was sort of a blanket, a security blanket I could hold onto.   00:35:57     And one thing led to another. I walked around the neighborhood to try to find out where I could stay. I got a place for ten dollars.   00:36:03     ALICE WINKLER: Things were going well enough, but then Quincy Jones got the call he’d been dreaming of. On the line was a member of Lionel Hampton's band. They remembered him and wanted to know if he was available to join them on tour.   00:36:18     MUSIC: HAMP’S BOOGIE WOOGIE   00:36:22     QUINCY JONES:    I was so happy. I'm telling you, you have no idea. And I told the dean there, I said, "I'll be back." He knew I'd never be back because once you get out there with professional musicians like that, and working 70 one-nighters in a row and all through the South — the band was doing 700 miles a night with these guys that had been out there 30 years, you know, old guys. I used to watch the old guys. I really respected their wisdom.   00:36:44     And there was a guy named Bobby Plater, who wrote the Jersey Bounce. Wonderful man. He was kind to me, too. I used to watch him and the guitar player, who had been out there 30 years, and they knew all the cheap hotels. You know, we made 17 dollars a night. You had to learn how to do that, too. And they had wash-and-wear shirts to carry in the sax case. I got one of those.   00:37:06     And they — when they'd get in a hotel, we'd go to Father Divine's for 15 cents, you know. And have the stew and stuff and say, “Peace,” when you go in the door. And you'd put your pants — fold them up and put your pants underneath the mattress. We couldn't afford to get them cleaned or pressed, and you'd put your coat in the bathroom, turn the steam on, hang your wash-and-wear shirt there, wash your handkerchief, put it on the mirror. And the next morning it's dry, and you pull it off, and it's already pressed, you know.   00:37:33    IRV DRASNIN: How did you learn how to read music?   00:37:35     QUINCY JONES: I don't know. I mean I just started and had to pay attention. It's just — you know, it's logical, though, and if you're standing out from all the other people, you know you're playing it wrong. So you have to understand the value of each note and so forth, and there are only four beats in each bar, or six or three or whatever it is. And — I don't know, you just use your mother wit, you know. Common sense, really.   00:37:56     A lot of people say, "Well, Count Basie and Earl Hines don't read music. That's amazing." I mean that has nothing to do with each other. Reading music is just a way to document it so you can remember what to play at the same time, but the creation of music has nothing to do with that at all. You know, that's a sense of — you know, it's a divine sense in a way, you know.   00:38:14     IRV DRASNIN: So you learned on your own?   00:38:15     QUINCY JONES: Yeah. There was a man named Joseph Pole, who was a military officer, and he had a dance band. He used to be with Wings Over Jordan, which was a famous choir, and so he asked me to babysit for him, and I loved to babysit for him because I could read his Glenn Miller orchestration books. And he had Frank Skinner underscoring about movies, and I mean, bam, that was like walking into a wonderland. I said, "What?" And then I got hung up on movies when I was 15.   00:38:43     ALICE WINKLER: Quincy Jones would eventually write, arrange, and record the scores for dozens of movies and television shows. Huge, really memorable ones, like The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, The Wiz, Roots, In the Heat of the Night, and one of Woody Allen's first films, Take the Money and Run. And then...   00:39:06    MUSIC: SOUL BOSSA NOVA   00:39:11     ALICE WINKLER: ...there’s the Austin Powers theme song, though that well-loved cut, Soul Bossa Nova, was actually released on a Quincy Jones album in 1962, 35 years before the first Austin Powers movies came out. In Goldmember, the third of this ridiculous trilogy, Quincy Jones makes a brief appearance, actually. He’s shown in the opening sequence, conducting the orchestra during the recording of the film’s score, when Austin Powers sidles up to him to plant a kiss.   00:39:42    AUSTIN POWERS: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Quincy Jones!   00:39:51    This is where the movie gets its mojo, baby!   00:39:55    QUINCY JONES:    Groovy!   00:39:57    MUSIC: SOUL BOSSA NOVA   00:40:00     ALICE WINKLER: Okay, there’s no way I was not going to play that, but picking up the thread again of Quincy Jones’s earlier life in music, he learned a lot about writing movie scores and all facets of music on his own, through books and fearless experimentation. But learning on his own often meant asking his heroes for their guidance. Most of them, he says, stepped up.   00:40:26     QUINCY JONES:    The generosity of the older musicians — Count Basie, who almost adopted me, like, at 13. He was, you know — gradually became — we were closer and closer and closer until we ended up conducting for him and Sinatra, you know. It was just like a dream, you know. They knew I wanted to do whatever I did well. They could tell. I guess they could feel that. And I hadn't gotten it together yet, but they knew I wanted to, and they knew one day I would, I guess, you know.   00:40:56     I don't know why they'd waste their time otherwise. But Clark Terry, too. He'd go to play until two or three in the morning. I'd say, "Well, Mr. Terry, I'd really love to study trumpet with you." He said, "Well, what's a good time, you know?" I said, "Well, the only time I can do it is before I go to school at six thirty." He said, "I don't get home until two o’clock or three o’clock in the morning." But they were there, you know. They were there, you know. Ray Charles was there. Clark Terry was there. Count Basie was there. It was just amazing.   00:41:26     I mean all my life Count Basie was there. He was, like, manager, mentor, father, brother, everything. He just — he'd help me get jobs when I had my big band later. And I remember we played up in New Haven, a job that he didn't want to take, and he said, "Okay, I've got a job for your band. You got it." And so they got the contracts. We were with the same agency, Willard Alexander, and we got a third of what he would get, naturally.   00:41:54     And it was a 12- or 1,300-seat place and only about 700 people showed up, and I was really disappointed and hurt, you know. I had a big band from New York. Basie showed up, you know, and he said, "Okay." He said, "Give the man half of the money back." I said, "What do you mean give him half the money back?" He said, "He put your name down front, and the people didn't come. He will be important for you in the future, and you shouldn't hurt him because the people didn't come. Give him half of his money back."   00:42:24     I gave half the money back. He tried to teach me how to be a human being, you know. And a lot of the guys were like that, just took me under their wing, and that's why I automatically help young people. I just love it, you know, because they did that to me. They were there.   00:42:38     ALICE WINKLER: And it wasn’t just the jazz musicians who were there. In the 1950s, Quincy Jones traveled to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, the French composer and conductor who taught many of the leading musical artists of the 20th century, including Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and Daniel Barenboim. She taught Quincy Jones lessons he’s carried with him his whole life.   00:43:04    QUINCY JONES:    Nadia Boulanger used to say, "There's only 12 notes, so listen to what everybody does with those 12 notes. That's all there are, really."   00:43:10    ALICE WINKLER: Quincy Jones seems to take comfort in that quote, comfort and pride, because in fact, he has spent his musical life embracing all kinds of music, every variation of those 12 notes.   00:43:24    MUSIC: THRILLER   00:43:35    ALICE WINKLER: Here's a number for you — 100 million. That is how many copies of Michael Jackson's Thriller have sold worldwide. Quincy Jones produced it. It was, and still is, 30-some-odd years later, the number one bestselling album of all time. So in purely numerical terms, it was the pinnacle of Quincy Jones’s career.   00:44:00    MUSIC: THRILLER   00:44:00    You start to freeze As horror looks you right between the eyes You're paralyzed 'Cause this is thriller, thriller night And no one's gonna save you From the beast about to strike You know it's thriller, thriller night You're fighting for your life inside a killer Thriller tonight   00:44:28    ALICE WINKLER: Quincy Jones followed up by producing another Michael Jackson mega-hit, Bad, and around the same time he served as producer on the movie version of The Color Purple. He convinced Steven Spielberg to direct it, and he cast a young aspiring news anchor and actress named Oprah Winfrey as Sofia, introducing her to a national audience. Naturally, he also created the soundtrack for the movie.   00:44:55    MUSIC: THE COLOR PURPLE   00:44:56    ALICE WINKLER: The year was 1985, the same year he produced We Are the World, by the way, so Quincy Jones was very much in the public eye, and soon a filmmaker approached him, wanting to make a documentary about his life. Quincy Jones says it was the first time he really stopped and looked back at his life in Chicago.   00:45:17     QUINCY JONES:    When we went back there, the people that produced the show — the film — they just let me get out of the car. I hadn't been back there in 50 years, to this home where we lived in Chicago. And I got out, and I was hoping it would be a supermarket, you know, or everything's gone. It was exactly like it was when we left. The paint job that my father left there was the same paint job.   00:45:42     Every room, every radiator, every vent was exactly the same. The backyard, the same wooden fence where this happened, it was all there. And Lucy, this girl that was next door, 12 years old, when I got out of the car — she was like 63 or something, in a wheelchair, and it was explosive. It just blew my psyche to — shattered it, you know. And when we went upstairs, Lucy — they helped her upstairs with the wheelchair, and she said, "That's the bed where they put the straightjacket on your mother."   00:46:14     And I had totally blanked it out. But they say — the therapy I've had said — that trauma is frozen at the peak, and as soon as she said it I saw her, that there were the four guys holding her down, and she was trying to get away, and they strapped her down and put that straightjacket on her. And then we were out front on the front step, and Lucy held my brother in her arms and closed his eyes as they put her in the ambulance. And I sat on the other step, and I had closed my eyes too, and I was crying, and I was singing this song, "Oh, oh, oh, oh, somebody touched me. It must have been the hand of the Lord," you know.   00:46:49     It all came back. All of these things that you've totally blanked out of your mind — it's a strange feeling to feel it reentering your soul, the reality that you've blanked out conveniently enough. It's unforgettable stuff, you know.   00:47:02     ALICE WINKLER: It would still take several more years before a friend was able to help Quincy Jones make the connection between what he’d been through as a child and the central role of music in his life. That friend was the well-known health expert Dr. Dean Ornish, and this is what he said to Quincy Jones.   00:47:21     QUINCY JONES: He said, "Somehow you — in trying to survive, you found a way to totally transfer all need or everything involving your mother into your music or your creativity." And I used to go into a little closet, a little, tiny closet that had four barrels with some two-by-fours and a workbench on it and just sit there and just turn the world off every time the pain came in, and went inside and just — since I was very young, just to take all the negative things and the painful things and take that and convert it into something beautiful and positive.   00:47:59     And so, because I could feel that if I turned it on myself into bitterness, it would kill me and it would take me out, like it did my brother. And I didn't know it was going — I didn't know what the process was about, but here I am at 66 years old and Dean tells me what this is all about. And it's strange because it took my brother out. It killed him. And I had transferred all of the need of what we didn't have, so I didn't need it anymore, because I had something else.   00:48:26     It was beautiful. It was mine. I could always depend on it. I could always go there no matter what happened. Racial things or whatever happened, I could go there, and it would be okay. And it was my own little world. I could make it what I wanted it to be.   00:48:38    ALICE WINKLER: It is still the healing balm that gives Quincy Jones peace and confidence and joy.   00:48:45    MUSIC: WANNA BE STARTIN’ SOMETHIN’   00:48:47    ALICE WINKLER: If I had one wish right now, it would be that Quincy Jones could have produced this podcast episode for me, but in a way, I guess he did. I'm Alice Winkler, and this is What It Takes from the Academy of Achievement. If you want to share Quincy Jones’s inspiring stories with your friends, Twitter is always handy. Our hashtag is #WhatItTakesNow.   00:49:10    MUSIC: WANNA BE STARTIN’ SOMETHIN’   00:49:10    I said you wanna be startin’ somethin’ You got to be startin’ somethin’ I said you wanna be startin’ somethin’ You got to be startin’ somethin’ It's too high to get over (yeah, yeah) Too low to get under (yeah, yeah) You're stuck in the middle (yeah, yeah) And the pain is thunder (yeah, yeah) It's too high to get over (yeah, yeah) Too low to get under (yeah, yeah) You're stuck in the middle (yeah, yeah) And the pain is thunder (yeah, yeah)   I took my baby to the doctor With a fever, but nothing he found By the time this hit the street They said she had a breakdown Someone's always tryin’ to start my baby cryin’ Talkin’, squealin’, lyin’ Sayin’ you just wanna be startin’ somethin’ I said you wanna be startin’ somethin’   00:49:51    ALICE WINKLER: Funding for What It Takes comes most generously from the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation.   00:49:56    MUSIC: WANNA BE STARTIN’ SOMETHIN’   END OF FILE

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